Pharma is hiring. Not in the U.S. so much, nor in hot spots like the Asia Pacific region. No, according to a report from corporate recruiters ZRG Partners, the biggest increase in pharma hiring for the first quarter came in the Austerity-R-Us region, Europe.
As Pharmalot reports, ZRG's Life Sciences Index found that hiring in this broad category grew by 3.7% worldwide during the first three months of this year. Pharma hiring on its own grew by 5%. And that increase was fueled by a 25% increase in Europe. By contrast, North American hiring was flat, and in Asia Pacific, it actually declined.
Digging deeper, the biggest demand in drugs and devices was for regulatory and quality-control types, where hiring grew by 15%. Even in the Americas, companies were looking for quality-control and process-development people, along with IT workers. Meanwhile, R&D hiring dropped (25%) and so did sales-and-marketing recruitment (5%).
Not to throw a wet blanket over any optimistic fervor these numbers might engender, but Pharmalot also notes that drugmakers haven't stopped cutting jobs, either. Challenger, Gray & Christmas noted 4,800 layoffs in the industry so far this year.
- see the Pharmalot post